


instead

by cebolla



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, M/M, TBC?, alterate timeline, vague spoiler but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 05:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6691033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cebolla/pseuds/cebolla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noah was cold-- he knew it in the objective way that he knew his hair was blonde without having anyway to experience it himself. He knew it from the small shudders he received from a soft touch here or there, from the gooseflesh that scattered across arms and lightly cringing smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	instead

Noah was cold-- he knew it in the objective way that he knew his hair was blonde without having anyway to experience it himself. He knew it from the small shudders he received from a soft touch here or there, from the gooseflesh that scattered across arms and lightly cringing smiles.

He was learning to keep his hands to himself, not something he was doing easily when touch was all that anchored him to his current existence. He flickered more times than not, turned to catch a sneer on Ronan's face, the one he made when he was being lied to.

"Sorry." Noah's hands were hovered an inch, then two, then three, then he was wringing them together and taking a step back.

"Did I say to be sorry?"

"Your face did."

"No, it really didn't." And there was a softness in that gruffness of Ronan, an evasion of his eyes from Noah that sounded suspiciously like some express permission, though Noah had apparently missed whatever context it was buried within before he blinked and Monmouth was dark.

Had it been a few hours? A few days? The ley line was flickering and unkind lately, something even Adam was troubled to remedy. He wondered what they saw in their dreams and scrying-- for all Noah's circular looping of time, he couldn't choose a place to fall.

So he fell wherever Cabeswater dropped him, or whatever other invisible force controlled him. Maybe some sequestered part of his subconscious that was vehemently rebelling his recent good behavior. 

And he was being tossed out a window, again. Or was this the first time? What had happened to continuity? What had happened to a polite order of a person's timeline? Time was circular, time was a loop, but Noah's time hadn't always been so infinite.

Was it fair for a ghost to think it was unfair? The snatches of what little life he had left flew by like images from a car on the highway. He hardly ever caught a smile from Ronan that he could put into context, and it made his chest hurt in a hollow way that reminded him there was nothing left there to bruise.

This time, he was in Ronan's room, on top of his desk, a peculiar place even for him. His eyes were on the familiar shapes of haphazard destruction, dirty clothes and forgotten textbooks. Down seemed like down, and up was finally a desperate gasp of air. 

Something felt fitted and snug in him, a side-affect no doubt of Adam's work on the ley line. Time seemed in order and Noah's fingers could feel the grain of the desk below them, reveled in the existence of fashionly time from the swipe of his finger from right to left.

That was when the door had burst open.

———

Ronan should have known better just by the sort of sour taste in his mouth that told him it was going to be a bad day. The sort of bad day that others lacked-- his were worse. They came in the shape of Declan’s disappointed face and Matthew's annoyance, in the way that Adam looked at him with confused wariness and the stern look on Gansey's face when he'd returned with a six pack for one, _Am I grounded?_

So when his door was slammed shut to Chainsaw's startled cry of Kerah, for once in his life he found himself startled by Noah's presence. He was an inkling of a form in the shadows over his desk and he would have gone unnoticed hadn't Ronan perfected sighting the boy down when other's failed. He didn't comment, just sat the case of beer down with an angry thunk and rattle against the grained surface Noah had moments ago seemed so intent on, didn't hesitate to crack a bottle open.

It tasted like piss, not that he'd expected any different. He was sliding to the floor, back against the desk and legs sprawled haphazardly in front of him. Noah moved to sit in front of him, six pack in hand as he followed lead, looking for all-the-world like a real honest-to-god person. Ronan was halfway through chugging the second beer down when his ghostly compatriot finally spoke.

"I broke my leg once," and Ronan fought himself to bite back a vicious silencer, unwarranted even as far as Ronan went. 

”Oh yeah?” He failed to keep the snarl from his voice, but Noah appeared unflinching. He was annoyed at himself for not giving Noah the single millimeter he was asking for, and simultaneously he was annoyed that he was asking for it at all.

But he was looking back at him, like he was waiting for permission to go on, or whether to lapse into that resentful silence again. Ronan stewed, finished his beer before saying anything in return.

"And you're asking for a repeat?"

”Didn’t remember until today. Thought it was the worst fucking day of my life. Hit the rail bad and it all went sideways. Crr-ack.” 

It was animated by Noah’s level hands rotating sideways, but Ronan was still caught on the little word that began with 'f' and ended with 'ucking' that had never before left his ghosts lips. He looked up to find Noah smiling at him.

"Until you threw me out the window, anyway. Never had a fear of heights, but I think I'll come to respect them." It was a joke as much as any other Noah might tell, easy and pointless, fodder words to be forgotten. 

Ronan felt like there was whisper behind the words, something that said, I’ll come to I’ll come to I’ll come to and Ronan saw himself tossing Noah out the window again and again and again, sometime in place where it wasn’t now, but it wasn’t then either.

_A dead boy._

Ronan watched the dead boy scratch at the cold floor tile in front of him, elbows tossed over the knees of his splayed legs. He wasn't sure where the story had come from, wasn't sure if he even asked whether Noah would answer.

”Yeah well you’re fucking welcome. Closest you'll ever get to flying.” Today seemed to be a good day, for Noah at least. He looked more whole than shadow holding a bottle he passed to Ronan. He seemed cheerful to have something to do with his hands, even to revel lightly in holding the glass in his own cold hands; it eased something violent in Ronan's chest, something tight like concern, but with it’s passing came a hunger aching so hard he was crushing his fingers white-knuckled into the bottle in his hands.

_A Dead boy._

Noah reached for another bottle and Ronan was surprised when he instead nudged backwards until his back hit the frame of Ronan's bed and contentedly nursed it in his hands.

”Maybe you should take a turn, then.” Noah’s matter-of-fact raised brows brought a sharp, unpleasant grin that was less happy and more aggressive to Ronan’s lips. The wrong response, but he swallowed it down with another gulp of piss to ease the cavernous burning in his chest, douse it before he turned his room inside out and scared Noah off to god knows where.

Not that Noah got scared off anymore than dust disappeared in the wake of a gale. It was the simple laws of physics, and Noah more than anyone seemed bound to them. Ronan’s emotions tore through him sometimes, ripped him to pieces. He wondered if he were still living, whether there’d be bruises on his arm, scratches on his cheeks— scars on his back.

They were both silent then, aside from a light contemplative hum from Noah, like the gears in his head were turning, like he was carefully measuring his next words.

”What happened?” The weight of them was deflected by his stately tone.

He would have laughed, if it were Gansey or Blue or Adam; but it wasn’t any of them, so instead he paused. Though he didn’t think of lying, he still grimaced, tasting a vague truth like acid on his tongue.

”In a bad mood. Saw someone I didn’t like; didn’t get to punch them.” He summarized stiffly, but it was too late-- just saying the words peeled back a level of armor to the raw emotions below. Ronan wasn’t ever sure where it came from, only that it was endless and untamable.

Noah nodded in morose agreement, brought the cold glass of his drink up to his lip as though he intended to take a gulp of it, but seemed to settle for the sensation of it against his skin.

This Noah seemed different, something fuller than the Noah he'd grown to know, and he wondered why it couldn’t have been any other day— any other day and he would have been able to keep from running his mouth and Noah into the wall as though reminder that he was simply pen on paper. Any other day and he would have reveled in Noah’s completeness.

Instead, he said, ”Speaking of, I’m sick of looking at you.” He said it lightly, sparingly, but there was an undertone of violence, a baring of his teeth that meant Danger; run away. 

It was too much just then, the boiling pit of rage, the hunger. He couldn’t be fun then, couldn’t make his face into an imitation of happiness. He wanted to break things— wanted to break Noah.

Noah was so whole, he was sure if he’d reached out to touch him, he’d be solid beneath his fingers. Was sure he’d burn the flesh from his knuckles before he allowed them to ever touch him so gently, was sure Noah would be less whole for the fury in and at himself he would expend. 

He wanted Noah to be unbreakable. 

Instead he was a Dead boy.

Ronan watched him nod before he got to his feet to move towards him and the desk. He was startled by the sudden chill against his neck, for a moment thought it was Noah’s hand before he turned and found the full glass bottle being pressed there with curious fingers.

”Don’t know if it’s valid since I’m dead and all and do ghosts even have bones? But it only aches a little now when I think about it.”

Ronan’s throat went tight, making it difficult to swallow the last of his own beer before he paused, frozen, and then reached for the one in Noah’s hand.

”Get out.”

He refused to look at the space where Noah had stood until he heard his door shut behind him— heard the pale mutterings of Gansey questioning and the silence that must have accompanied a shake of Noah’s head.

He stood, lifted the bottle in his hand to smash against the far window, but his eyes caught on the lip of it, fingers shaking in paralysis and the faint ghostly after-image of Noah’s lips. He thought about not throwing it— he thought about the taste of the smooth bottle against his lips, the feeling, ice-cold to the touch, how it only encouraged him.

The bottle shattered the window devastatingly enough to warrant and cry of alarm from Gansey, though he didn’t enter the room.

**Author's Note:**

> this may or may not be continued. comments are adored.


End file.
